Podcast Heavn’: EMERGENCY PANTS, or Top 5 Reasons I Love Bridget & Shane
06.05.09
So with the gift of this amazing iTouch for Chanukah last year, I’ve finally come around to the world of Podcasts. Until last week, my favorite was The Moth, brilliant live storytelling that has made me both laugh and cry (mostly laugh), and is a must-listen. Recent Moth faves: Michaela Murphy on her family’s obsession with spying on the Kennedys, and Jerry Stahl on heroin vs. crack. Free on iTunes and not for kids.
I still love The Moth, but am now podstalking a crazy couple of midwestern kids–Bridget and Shane–from Omaha, Nebraska, the young geniuses behind Emergency Pants (also not for kids). How I connected with this far-more-obscure content was through the snarky embroidering community on Flickr. I’ve been posting some of my weird projects (above) and Bridget also posts her cool stuff there (below).
Anyway, what IS Emergency Pants? Two friends. Talking. Laughing. Gossiping. In-jokes and out-jokes. The kind of podcast that generally makes me bored, impatient and annoyed. Not this one. Here are the top 5 reasons (out of too many to list) that I love these guys and you might too:
1. THE FRIENDSHIP: If I’ve got this right, Shane & Bridget have known each other for.ev.ah. Like 15-17 years or so. Their enduring/endearing friendship provides this sweet and easy communication that flows like a giggly river. Maybe you had a friendship like this many moons ago. Maybe not. If you did, you probably don’t anymore because you grew up and got serious, moved away, joined a corporate cult, or just somehow stopped finding life funny. Here’s your chance to plug in again.
2. THE CONTENT: Like Seinfeld for the next gen, this is a show about nothing. Nothing, as is observed by two very funny people, whose often dark and/or ironic/and or self-deprecating/and or juvenile/and or sweet sense of humor is just my cuppa tea. Sometimes potty humor (the pooplosion, illustrated above), often hilarious workplace stories (including, somehow, horse semen), a meatloaf cookoff. You will laugh in spite of your jaded self, and if you don’t, well, you are a hopeless human being. And, of course, it’s not really about nothing, but you knew that, didn’t you, smarty (emergency) pants?
3. BRIDGET’S LAUGH: Some people have the MOST horrendous hyena laughs, other guffaws are regular and mundane. Bridget has an unrestrained musical giggle, a laugh that could be bottled and sold for its healing properties, but that she so generously chooses to give away, people, free of charge, each weekly episode. Ten seconds in or less, and there’s the laugh, genuine, warm, and more infectious (and fun) than swine flu.
4. SHANE (+ THE ACCENTS): Shane is a funny funny dude. Geeky, smart and the boyish yang to Bridget’s girly yin. Like a really cool IT guy that you’d actually want to be friends with. (Wait, he IS an IT guy!) And, did I mention Omaha? Well, with my admittedly idiotic sense of geography I actually had to google a map of the US to see exactly where Nebraska is situated in this great land of ours. Because if it’s west of Illinois, other than California, it’s something of a blur to me (sorry! really, I’m sorry!). Both hosts have those flat, broad sort of midwestern voices with just a twinge of Fargo… like the comfort food of regional accents.
5. THE MUSIC: Three words: Men without Pants. Yes… WITHOUT pants and featuring Russell Simins and Dan the Automator. Why Russell and Dan don’t have emergency pants is not for me to say. But anyway, a snippet of their rockin’ tune, When the Girls Go, opens and closes the show. Searing, trashy, silly and ass-kicking.
6. THE COMMUNITY (sorry, can’t keep it to 5): When you become a fan/stalker of the show, you will find other like-minded silly souls. One of them, Jamie (ie, Mr. Xstitch), a manbroiderer from the UK, runs a blog that showcases the best and the brightest alterna-stitchers the world over. (Above image from Jamie’s flickr photostream, courtesy of Stitch Out Loud). There’s also partner-in-crime and oft-guest, Tony (if that’s his real name) who drags the kids a wee bit further into the gutter with his hyperactive, campy, and biting humor. Finally, the E-Pants blog will provide you with links to additional content that the kids know you need, threatening to basically hijack your life (as it obviously has mine).
So yeah, check it! And remember: When life gives you lemons, you put on your Emergency Pants.
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